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| Titel |
The added value of high-resolution climate modeling of the Greenland Ice Sheet |
| VerfasserIn |
Willem Jan van de Berg, Erik van Meijgaard, Bert Van Ulft, Horst Machguth, Brice Noël, Michiel van den Broeke |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2016
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| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
en
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| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 18 (2016) |
| Datensatznummer |
250133052
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| Publikation (Nr.) |
 EGU/EGU2016-13622.pdf |
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| Zusammenfassung |
| The local surface mass balance (SMB) of glaciers and ice sheets is to a very high extent
related to topography. Subsequently, spatial variability in the SMB is also related to the
spatial scales in the topography. The typical topographic length scales on the Greenland Ice
Sheet are from several to over hundred kilometers. Therefore, regional climate models with
resolutions between 5 and 25 kilometers normally capture the SMB of the Greenland Ice
Sheet well.
In this study, we analyze the added value of high-resolution regional climate simulations
compared to statistical downscaling. For this aim, the regional climate model RACMO2 has
been run for South Greenland for the period 2007-2014 using resolutions of 60, 20, 6.6 and
2.2 kilometer. Modeled and downscaled SMB from these four simulations are analyzed and
evaluated against ablation observations.
Our results show that the strong correlation of runoff to elevation makes statistical
downscaling a robust tool to refine modeled spatial SMB patterns. However, only
high-resolution climate modeling can improve the physical representation of the SMB in
lower ablation zone, because the summertime interaction between the warm air over the
tundra and the colder air over the ice sheet starts to be resolved. As a result, the runoff in the
lower ablation zone is more enhanced compared to lower resolution simulations and
statistical downscaled SMB. |
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